


One Headlight

by cutloosemcgoose



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Magic, Magic Claudia Stilinski, Minimal Claudia/Sheriff, Minimal Sterek, Panic Attacks, Road Trip, Soulmates, season finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:59:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutloosemcgoose/pseuds/cutloosemcgoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Claudia went west. Derek and Cora go east.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Headlight

**Author's Note:**

> There are already a few amazing, post-finale road trip fics out there. Here's my take on that.
> 
> Title is from the Wallflowers' "One Headlight," which is my theme song for Claudia Stilinski.
> 
> Spoilers for the season three finale, "Lunar Ellipse."
> 
> Be warned, this is almost totally gen, with a little Derek/Stiles and Claudia/Sheriff in there. Mention and non-graphic description of a panic attack.

_Derek (California - Spring 2013)_

Derek and Cora leave Beacon Hills on a Sunday, without any fanfare. They don’t tell anyone that they’re going, but Derek thinks that Scott knows, anyway.

They haven’t been on I-80 long when Derek’s phone starts vibrating. He looks over, but Cora get gets there first, swiping across the screen and frowning down at it. 

“It’s Stiles,” she tells him. “He says to have fun finding ourselves and not to piss off any other histrionic werewolves.”

When he looks up, their expressions are matching: Cora looks like she doesn't know whether to laugh or scowl. 

“Tell him thanks,” Derek says. “Please.”

Their phones are silent the rest of the drive out of state.

_Claudia (Massachusetts - Fall 1987)_

The one she’s looking for is in California. Claudia can feel him, all the way across the continent. She could probably feel him across the world, if that were the distance between them. There’s a funny little pulse in her chest, when she focuses hard enough. That’s him, somewhere on the west coast, waiting for her, even though he doesn't know it yet. 

There’s a double skip to his heart sometimes. It could be a problem, later on, if no one is there to watch out for him, to make sure that he’s careful. To keep him safe. 

She’s going to make sure he will be. 

_Derek (Montana)_

The last time Derek drove cross country, it was towards Beacon Hills, the taste of ash still on his tongue. He knew that he was losing Laura and that he’d never make it in time, but he still sped the whole way.

The last time Derek drove cross country with one of his sisters, he was fourteen, Laura was sixteen, and Cora was eight, shoved uncomfortably between them in the backseat. 

“The baby sits in the middle,” Derek told her before they left, very seriously. “So you’re always going to be stuck in the middle, because you’re always going to be the baby.”

Cora bared her teeth and him and snarled and Laura dragged him into a headlock. “You were the baby for a long time, Derek, don’t forget it.” They wrestled together for a few minutes before their mom flashed her eyes at them and they all stopped, piled into the car on the way to Colorado.

Now, Cora holds out her hand to him impatiently at a rest stop outside of Pocatello. “You promised.”

Derek can’t think of a nice way to say, “I don’t know who taught you how to drive and I’m afraid you’re going to crash,” so instead he lobs the keys at her, gently, and it’s worth it for the way her whole face lights up as she runs back to the car. Laura taught Derek how to drive, even though she had hardly any experience; they took their parents’ Bronco out and Laura screamed at him every time he missed a gear change. Derek would have been the one to teach Cora, a few years down the road; she’d always begged to sit on his lap when they took the back roads somewhere.

She’s good, a little more careful than she needs to be (nothing like Laura, who used her senses as an excuse to always fiddle with the radio, to take her eyes off the road constantly so that she could look at him; he tries, tries not to compare them, but it’s so hard).

“I told you I knew what I was doing,” Cora says, a little smugly. “Didn't I?”

Derek swallows hard around a lump in his throat. “You did. You’re a good driver.”

She beams at him. Smiles had been few and far between in Beacon Hills; Derek thinks he’s gotten more, in the last day, than the last two months combined.

Cora drives them all the way to Yellowstone. Last time, Derek drove straight across the middle of the country. This time, he doesn't have a plan. He’s told Cora they can stop anywhere they want to, and this is what she chose: thirty five hundred miles where they can shift, run, and be free. They leave the car outside and sneak in, spend the whole night as wolves, tussling with each other, stalking elk. When the sun rises, they slip out and shift back, sleep the morning away in the car before getting back on the road. 

_Claudia (Rhode Island)_

She takes her sweet time getting there. It might be her fate, but no one said she had to sprint towards it (that’s a lie. Her grandmother had warned her, the consequences of delaying. She’s heard stories, of lovers come together too late, of broken hearts and life cut short. Death isn't the end, but it’s not to be trifled with, either; what’s brought back is never right. If you miss it, her babcia had warned her, it’s gone). 

She plays with it, hovers on the knife edge between insubordination and rebellion. Wonders what her life will be, if she resists; if she plants her roots somewhere else, instead. Claudia drives down 95 in a ‘67 Corvette, leaves Massachusetts behind in a squeal of tires just because she can. It’s petty, maybe; Salem was good to her and the things you do come back to you, but she’s twenty and young enough not to care, just this once. She goes south because she can; there’s no law that says all routes west must start that way.

She starts, stops, delays. She spends a day in Providence, a week in New York. In Rhode Island, there’s freshly caught seafood and pickleback shots on Eddy Street, free of charge (she’s not conventionally beautiful; this, she knows and accepts. There’s something about her, though, a magnetism that draws others in, compels them to her. An unintentional glamour. She usually plays it down on purpose, but on this, last cross country trip of her life, she embraces it). There’s a Pink Floyd concert at the Civic Center and she tags along with a group of boys and girls, tilts her head back to the sky and sings “wish you were here” to all of those who are gone. 

_Derek (Minnesota)_

Derek picks Minnesota. Cora looks surprised, but doesn't complain: they've each got veto power when it comes to destinations. Just in case. Derek never wants to step foot in Florida again and he knows Cora must have her own places to avoid, memories she wants to keep hidden away. He doesn't want this trip to hurt, not the way those months in Beacon Hills must have. 

“Lac Supérieur,” Cora says, when they’re standing by the shore. Her French is good; Derek is impressed. 

They travel down the boardwalk together, Cora’s arm linked through his. Their parents used to do that, too; Derek always got roped into being dual escort for both of his sisters, the three of them tagging along in an awkward jumble of limbs. 

There’s a bar and grill, all the way at the end; Derek can barely see it, even when he squints. “Lunch?” he asks Cora, nodding towards the distance.

Cora looks towards it, considering. “Race you? Loser pays,” and she’s off like a shot, before Derek can even agree. He takes off after her in a second, but she’s got the advantage when it comes to speed. A part of Derek—the part that still thinks like an alpha—makes note of it, tries to figure out how it can be used, but he shuts that down, ruthlessly. That’s not what they’re here for. That’s not what he and Cora need each other for, anymore.

Cora wins, jumps on his back in celebration when he finally catches up to her. “You didn't even give me a chance to negotiate terms,” he grumbles as he jogs towards the tavern, hands automatically locking around her legs. Muscle memory, even though it’s never mattered if Derek drops her or not. 

“Sore loser,” she teases, giving him a wet willy that surprises him into letting go. She hops off his back and heads inside before he can think of a comeback. 

_Claudia (New York)_

Parking in New York is shit and the city is a dump and Claudia loves it like she’s never loved anything else. It’s beautiful, even covered in graffiti, littered with trash. She leaves her car in Queens and wanders the city on foot, spends days in the parks, amazed to find that nature will always find a way, even in the midst of concrete and steel. She takes the ferry out, sees the Statue of Liberty in the distance and blows it a kiss, a “thank you” for her protection and grace. 

She kisses two boys and a girl one night, on the Lower East Side, dancing wildly in a dirty club. Her destiny is elsewhere, three thousand miles away, but she can still have this, before she finds it. She loses herself in the music, the drinks, their touch, in a week where she takes whatever and whoever she wants. She’s allowed to be selfish, this once. To get what she needs.

She peels out of New York on a lazy fall day, guns her engine as a group of kids on stoop whoop and holler at the sound. She revs the accelerator to make them cheer, then leaves New York behind in a cloud of dust.

_Derek (Illinois)_

Chicago pizza is not that great. Cora punches him the arm, hard, when he says it, but Derek refuses to back down.

“I don’t like it and beating me up isn't going to change anything,” Derek says, reaching out to wipe his grease-stained fingers on Cora’s arm in retaliation.

“Oh, gross. Gross to your disgusting, dirty fingers, and gross to your completely wrong attitude,” Cora says. “I've been dreaming about Pequod’s for months and when I try to share it with you, this is what I get?”

Derek feels a momentary flash of guilt before he really looks at Cora’s face, sees the smile hiding behind her eyes. “You can’t trick me into liking it, I have too much self-respect for that.”

Cora does smile, then, and pushes her cheesy garlic bread at him. “I knew you were going to hate it, you've always been so weird about your pizza.”

He really has, although he’s surprised that Cora remembers that. It seems like such an insignificant thing to remain, after so much else has been lost. 

“There’s a really great place in New York,” he tells her. “On Bleecker Street. Laura loved it, maybe we can—maybe we can stop on the way.”

Cora stops, mid-bite, and stares at him for a long second before she nods, a little jerkily, and keeps eating. “Yeah, I want to go,” she says, after she swallows. “If you don’t—”

“I want to take you there,” Derek says. “I think you’ll like it, too.”

“Even though I love horrible, deep-dish monstrosities?” Cora asks.

“Everybody’s got their flaws,” Derek says, and Cora laughs so hard she cries.

_Claudia (South Carolina)_

She works the winter away at a little beachside diner, right off the shore. It’s almost completely dead, this time of year. Luckily, Claudia is young and charming, spins a nice sob story about being all alone in the world (true) and trying to save enough for college (false). She makes decent tips from the locals, pays off her rent by cooking and cleaning for the owner of the boarding house down the road. 

It’s the first time in her life that she’s worked for a real wage, money to take home at the end of the day. Before this, it had always been about her studies, her lessons; that was what mattered, not having enough money for a fancy car or expensive clothes. She can feel the spark in her lessening with each passing day, every time she reaches out a human hand to complete a task, instead of using her force of will.

It’s distressing, turns what should be a happy time (young, single, sitting on the wraparound porch with a glass of sweet tea, watching the waves pound against the shore) into a bitter one, makes her restless, sharp. If she—if she loses it, her spark, her power, if California and her life there mean that she doesn't have it anymore, that’s she an empty shell—

Mrs. Borden finds her like that, ten minutes later, in the midst of a panic attack, face down on the ground, gasping for air. “Good lord,” she mutters irritably, pulling Claudia to her feet and dragging her into the kitchen. “Calm down.”

It takes another ten minutes and a shot of whiskey before she can, hands still shaking as she stares down at them in horror. 

“Alright then?” Mrs. Borden asks. She’s not given to sentimentality or tenderness, but her hands, as she pats Claudia’s shoulder, are kind. 

“Yes, thank you,” Claudia says. She leaves the next day.

_Derek (North Carolina)_

Cora vetoes Tennessee.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, when Derek tries to press her. It’s hard not to; as her older brother, as her packmate, he wants to know what happened, if someone hurt her, where they are now so that he can rip them apart. 

Not all demons are physical, though; Cora can’t banish Kate or Jennifer, anymore than he could, and Cora’s almost an adult, old enough to survive for six years on her own, old enough to make her own decisions. He doesn't push, swings up through West Virginia instead and brings them into North Carolina. He drives so that she can stare out the window instead of at him, so she can have her time and space (as much as possible, inside a car), and brings them to Durham.

Cora looks skeptically at the stadium but follows Derek when he goes in. There’s a short porch in right field, so he gets them nosebleed seats (there’s a great view no matter where they sit) and they stuff themselves full of hot dogs and popcorn while the Bulls thrash the Braves. Baseball was Derek’s thing; basketball was big when Peter was in school and now lacrosse is all the rage, but Derek played third base and batted clean up until he and Laura left Beacon Hills. He would have been good enough for the minors, if he stayed, and it wasn't just because he was a werewolf. 

Cora used to come to all his home games with their parents and scream her voice hoarse from the stands. Laura was usually there too, with her own friends in a corner, but Cora would take the closest seat to the field and yell Derek’s name for nine straight innings. She’d been crazy about him, when they were kids; it always reminded Derek of the Caulfields, Holden and Phoebe and a baseball glove full of poems. 

He slings an arm around her shoulder while she’s hurling insults at the home plate umpire. Cora doesn't even bat an eye, just takes another breath and keeps yelling about how the guy wouldn't know a strike zone if it bit him in the ass. It’s a great thing to watch.

_Claudia (Louisiana)_

New Orleans is teeming with magic, overflowing, right down to its core. She feels it rising up in her, every time her feet touch the ground. It makes her feel light, giddy, buoyed up into the air. She laughs and laughs and laughs and it’s infectious, cheers everyone around her.

She eats beignets every morning, drinks her coffee by the river and looks out at the world. It’s beautiful. There’s so much in it to see and to do, to be. Her spark is still there; it can lay dormant, but it isn't disappearing, isn't abandoning her after twenty long years. She puts a hand to the earth and feels the power coursing through her and she laughs again, at how silly she could have been to think that it would ever leave her.

Claudia speaks French with an atrocious accent that makes all the locals laugh and she goes dancing, listens to the music that seems to emanate from every corner of the city. She thinks about what life could be like, in a place like this; allows herself to dream of a future here, of bright-eyed children with her same gifts, children of the earth and the air and her mysterious husband. California is calling, but the streets and alleys of New Orleans beckon to her, enticing. 

She stays for Mardi Gras, even though time grows short and she can feel it, slipping away, ever so slowly. The end of February is unseasonably warm and people come out in droves. They dance in the streets and watch the parade floats, fling brightly colored beads into the crowd and go out drinking, every night. Claudia goes with them, gets swept up in the rush of people and pulled along the current. It’s a perfect time to be alive. 

_Derek (Pennsylvania)_

It’s eight hours until Scranton and Derek sleeps the whole time. Cora gets frustrated with the shitty radio reception in North Carolina and hooks up her iPod, playing songs that Derek vaguely remembers listening to in high school. He nods off outside Henderson and wakes only when Cora pulls to a stop.

“A ghost walk? Really?”

“My turn,” Cora says. “Come on, it’ll be fun to fake-run for our lives, for once.”

It is fun. It’s early fall and the weather is just starting to turn. Cora sneaks a laced flask into his jacket, nips at it when their guide’s back is turned. By the end, they’re both a little tipsy, laughing at the stories they've heard (“should we tell them about Peter and his resurrection?” Cora had asked, halfway through, and Derek had snorted so loudly that a fellow walker turned around and shot them a both a dirty look). They wander around the city afterwards, stop at a place called Cosmo’s for cheesesteaks. “Wrong city,” Derek tells Cora. “You’re thinking of Philly.”

“Shut up and eat,” she says, and he does. 

Cora holds his hand, walking back to the car, and Derek gives in to the impulse to pull her close, press a kiss to her temple. “I’m glad you’re here,” he tells her, and her answering smile is overwhelming.

_Claudia (New Mexico)_

She turns twenty one in Las Cruces, takes shots of tequila on the banks of the Rio Grande with a group of students from NM State. They sit on the edge of the river, talking of history, philosophy. It’s warm enough to dip her toes in, so she does, listens to the rise and fall of voices around her. She can hear what they’re saying, if she concentrates hard, but layered over that is another sound, the voices of her family, her teachers, rising with the wind and settling down in the waters. It’s a lonely sound. She’s used to that; has been for a long time. For the first time, though, she wonders if she’s ready to be rid of it.

She lies back along the shore and breathes. 

_Derek (Maine - Fall 2013)_

There’s a pirate festival going on when they get to Maine. Four thousand miles away from home, Cora chases Derek around the pier until she’s managed to strap an eyepatch to his face.

“Don’t even think about taking that off,” she says, stifling a giggle and trying to keep a straight face. “We have to blend in with the natives.”

Derek retaliates by buying a stuffed parrot and velcroing it to her shirt. “Assimilation,” he says, very seriously, which leads to Cora forcing a plastic hook onto one hand. 

“Don’t claw your eye out,” she warns him. 

There’s fresh lobster, crab, blueberry cobbler and chowder, all the more delicious with the smell of the Atlantic sharp in their noses. On their third day in town, Derek is approached by the local alpha. 

“You can stay as long as you want to,” Naomi tells them. “Let me know if you need anything, or want to go for a run with the pack.”

Fall ends with a flash and then they’re bearing down, for at least the winter, if not longer. Derek has never asked Cora what she wants to do, after this: if she wants to go back to California or somewhere else, go to school, work. There are a lot of conversations that they still need to have, questions that he hasn't been able to bring himself to ask yet.

It’s okay. They have all winter to work them out.

_Claudia (California - Spring 1988)_

The ‘Vette stutters to a halt and then dies, suddenly, right as she’s pulling off 5 in search of a rest stop. Considering it brought her four thousand miles without complaint, she’s grateful, not angry; but it does leave her in the awkward position of having two suitcases, no transportation, and very little money in her pocket, with an important man still to find.

She’s sitting on one suitcase, right on the shoulder of the highway, trying to decide what to do when a police cruiser, lights flashing, pulls up beside her. She rolls her eyes; dealing with cops isn't unknown, but it’s a hassle every time and they’re always overcompensating for something.

“Hello, there,” the officer says, when he steps out of the car. Claudia has to shield her eyes against the sun to see his face; he’s much younger than she expected, and handsome. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she says. “Just waiting for a ride.”

He hesitates. “Anyone in particular, or will a highway patrolman do?”

She squints at him a little. “That depends. Will I owe you something for this ride?”

He blanches so quickly she almost laughs. “No! God, no. I just don’t like the thought of leaving a young girl like you on the side of the road. Lot of characters around here.”

“I’m twenty one,” she tells him. “Not so much younger than you, I think.”

“Twenty three,” he says. “Can I give you a lift? Anywhere you like, free of charge.”

“Sure,” she says, grabbing a bag in each hand and heading towards the car. He rushes ahead of her to open the back door and together, they wrestle both suitcases in. He holds the passenger door open for her, too, before crossing to the driver’s side and getting in.

When he looks over at her, sitting beside him, she feels a familiar double skip, right beneath her breastbone. Oh, she thinks. It is you.

“So,” he asks her. “Where to?”

She can tell him anywhere, anything; he may be her fate, but it’s still her life, still her choice. He looks at her with bright eyes, laugh lines already edging their way in. A happy face. A good one.

“Nearest hotel,” she tells him. “I’m going to be sticking around for a while.” 

(John isn't overcompensating for anything, Claudia is delighted to find)

_Stiles (California - Spring 2014)_

Derek and Cora come back to Beacon Hills on a Monday. It’s been three hundred and forty seven days since they left. 

Stiles is sitting on his porch when Derek walks up. It’s been one of the coldest winters that anyone can remember and Stiles feels every inch of it in his bones. It’s been a long eleven months.

“Hey,” he says, when Derek is right in front of him. “Welcome back, man.”

“Thank you,” Derek says.

“You look good,” Stiles tells him. Derek actually looks kind of like a mountain man, beard thick and full, but it’s not a lie. He’s a little—softer. Not as scarily muscled and well-defined. It suits him. He looks happier than Stiles has ever seen him.

“You look tired,” Derek says, and Stiles has to laugh.

“Been a long year. I’ll tell you all about it sometimes.”

“Over dinner, maybe?” Derek asks, and Stiles’ jaw drops.

“Are you asking me out?”

“Been a long winter,” Derek says, a hint of a smile on his face. “I could use some company now that I’m back in town.”

“But—me?” Stiles asks.

Derek does smile then, and it stretches across his face, reveals those cute little teeth that Stiles has been trying really hard not to think about all year. “Yeah. You.”

Stiles takes a second to think. “Is Cora going to ask me about my intentions and shove me against a wall when I come pick you up?”

“Definitely,” Derek assures him. “But don’t worry; we've talked about how not to break the fragile humans we come across.”

“Wolf’s got jokes,” Stiles says. “I like it. Tomorrow at eight?”

“It’s a date,” Derek says, and they stand there, smiling helplessly at each other for a minute before Derek says, “I have to—” and starts walking away.

“Hey,” Stiles calls out, after Derek has made it a few feet. “I’m glad you went and walked the earth, man, but I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Derek calls back. “I’m glad I’m home.”


End file.
